Jeff Jacoby confuses begging people to vote with providing information and making voting more convenient (“Why should we beg anyone to vote?” Op-ed, Aug. 12).
At least in the case of the state’s mailing voter-registration forms to welfare recipients, we need to understand the constraints associated with poverty. Poverty creates challenges, such as paying for the child care and transportation needed to get to the voting booth, and taking precious time away from jobs, school, and family in order to wait in line to vote.
But more important, the people that this voter-registration drive is trying to reach may not be ignorant, apathetic, or indifferent, as Jacoby suggests. Rather, they may be conditioned to feel that their vote won’t matter because the rich control their lives anyway, regardless of who holds office.
They may have a point there; however, both Elizabeth Warren and Senator Scott Brown have a moral obligation to change that situation.